Synnergy LLC was scheduled to present its solar field application Thursday evening before the Hamilton Township Planning Board, but the meeting was abruptly canceled after the Delaware Riverkeeper Network stepped forward with concerns, The Trentonian has learned.

Steven Durst, a Synnergy corporate officer, said his application team was asked to adjourn and postpone Thursday’s meeting to Dec. 13 “to meet with an organization known as Delaware Riverkeepers to address any concerns they may have, so I agreed to do that.”

The application calls for 11,614 ground-mounted solar panels to be constructed on a parcel of land near the flood-prone Cornell Heights neighborhood. Numerous trees within a 39.4-acre industrial zone off Sweetbriar Avenue would be chopped down to accommodate the solar farm development, according to Durst, who says the panels would pose no flood risks.

Residents who live in Cornell Heights, including former councilman Dennis Pone, have expressed deep concerns that the plan to remove lots of trees to make way for nearly 12,000 ground-mounted solar panels would indeed put the neighborhood at greater risk of flooding.

The neighborhood is surrounded by water from the Assunpink Creek to Miry Run, and the area has suffered from significant flooding over the last 15 years, especially when Hurricane Irene barreled through in August 2011.

Trees soak up the rain and help reduce runoff, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That fact is one of the biggest reasons cited by residents of Cornell Heights on why they oppose the proposed solar farm, saying they believe it will make the neighborhood more susceptible to flooding.

But Durst said the proposed solar farm application, which has already received necessary approvals from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, does not increase stormwater runoff one iota.

“We don’t increase it,” he said Thursday night in an interview. “We diminish stormwater runoff. The evidence is incontrovertible.”

Durst acknowledges that Cornell Heights has a bad history with flooding but says “the piece of ground we are developing on isn’t the reason they are being flooded.” He said other development in the area, including the Hamilton Train Station with its paved parking lot, is the reason why the neighborhood has been flooded.

Synnergy’s application team in the coming days will meet with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, according to Durst, who said the company is looking at additional ways to address the flooding concerns that neighbors have expressed.

“We are going to try to contribute to solving their problem,” he said.

Synnergy is seeking preliminary and final site plan approval from the Hamilton Planning Board as well as variance relief from front yard setback. In application documents obtained by The Trentonian, Synnergy suggests the proposed variance will not substantially adversely affect the public good because the public would be the “benefactor of renewable energy sources.”

Durst previously told The Trentonian that “some trees will have to be cut down” before the solar panels could be installed but said “about 75 percent of the trees there will remain.”

The proposed solar farm would be built on a parcel of land owned by Hopewell Township resident Philip J. Vecere. If the application wins planning board approval, about 12.5 acres would be developed into a Sweetbriar Avenue solar field benefiting the nearby Ewing-Lawrence Sewerage Authority or ELSA facility off Whitehead Road in Lawrence Township, according to Durst.

ELSA provides sewer services to residents in Ewing and Lawrence townships. The solar field, if approved, would substantially lower ELSA’s annual energy costs by over $250,000, “a direct benefit to taxpayers,” Durst said in an interview last month.

The Hamilton Planning Board originally said it needed to make a decision on the proposed solar farm by Nov. 21. Apparently Synnergy will be given additional time to present its application, because Durst says the company is now scheduled to have its application heard on Dec. 13.

“I am just interested in going to a meeting,” Durst said Thursday night, “and stating a case and hopefully getting approved.”

Maya K. van Rossum is the Delaware Riverkeeper, and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network is a nonprofit membership organization that “champions the rights of our communities to a Delaware River and tributary streams that are free-flowing, clean, healthy, and abundant with a diversity of life.”

Synnergy is a New Jersey-based company. Robbinsville-based attorney Michael H. Magee is representing Synnergy in the solar field application.

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Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman previously worked as a staff writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer and has lived in Sydney, Australia, ultimately writing a memoir about that experience. He is a Temple University graduate and award-winning journalist.